


sugar clouds

by mirokkuma



Category: KAT-TUN (Band)
Genre: AU, Baking adventures, Domestic Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-20
Updated: 2015-02-20
Packaged: 2018-03-13 22:49:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3399143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mirokkuma/pseuds/mirokkuma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He hadn't really planned on this, being 30 and baking cookies and swaying in the living room in the middle of the day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sugar clouds

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bluebirdsongs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebirdsongs/gifts).



> For my lovely lovely bff and RP partner Tori ♥ late happy birthday and early happy RP anniversary! x3  
> It's our Akame's 5th anniversary(!!) this year and I tried to encapsulate their incredible and gross smushiness but I'm not even sure that's possible :P Tori, I hope I finally have done Kame's temperament some justice.. Thank you so much for being such an awesome friend, RP partner, support, and suffering my other interests <3 (and thank you to Kame for always supporting Jin through so many things and loving Jin bigger than bigger than space x3 )
> 
> ⊛ Jin uses neutral pronouns  
> ⊛ Pancake is their spoilt fat corgi

"Can you believe she's turning 9 already?" Kame pushes up onto his toes to see as far back into the cabinet as possible. His niece was only five years old when Jin became a part of the family; comparably he and Jin don't seem to have aged as fast (if anything Kame feels as though having Jin in his life is starting to make him age backwards). "I know we missed out on a few years when we were living away, but 9 years old already.."

Kame emerges from the depths of the cabinet with a mixing bowl in his left hand and a sieve tucked under his right arm. Jin has been on ingredient gathering duty, but when Kame looks up from his own task (equipment locating) Jin's face is buried in the magazine containing the recipe. "Jin, stop reading that! We don't have much time."

Jin's shoulders jolt and they let out a little whine before peering around the edge. "I wasn't! I just lost the page the recipe was on." Jin flips to the correct page with practiced accuracy. Kame quirks an eyebrow.

"I somehow think you know how the cover story ends now."

"I wish they'd made series like this when we were kids," Jin says by way of reply as they carefully prop the magazine up against the wall. Turned out the princess wasn't being guarded by a knight-in-shining-armour-eating dragon but was the dragon herself — no wonder Mariko enjoys it. Jin likes stories like that, too. Not that they were reading it. "Kids magazines are kind of flimsy though, aren't they." They steady it with a coffee mug and step back with their hands held high, willing it to stay.

Kame shrugs. "Considering how expensive they are and how rough kids can be, I guess." He's gathered everything they need in his arms and dumps the mixing bowl, sieve, rolling pin and spoons down on the counter without ceremony. Jin lets out a little wail behind him, but the disturbance doesn't topple the magazine. "Ok. Are we ready to start?"

Jin looks on, visibly worried. "I'm worried."

Kame turns and blinks up at them. Jin and their woolly flyaway hair already looks stress-dishevelled. "You've worked in a bakery." Kame points out. "And two— three? Cafes? This recipe is for kids to make with minimal adult supervision."

"I'm not worried about baking!" Jin flaps their hands, "I mean, she told me like seven hundred times that it's her favourite copy of the magazine. And she only has one, and she's given it to us to use in a kitchen." And by given Jin means that Mariko had thrust it into their hands with a look of solemn threat not to betray her trust, because she has great faith that her Auntie Jinny that brings home-made treats on every visit and understands the importance of princesses will be able to make the recipe just right. "And she seemed really intense about us making them perfectly," they add, and the look they give Kame is so unsubtle they may as well have just pushed him out the kitchen and barricaded the door.

And it's not entirely unfounded — Kame's not a _bad_ cook by any means, but he is to baking what Jin is to being asked if they can take a look at the account books after work.

Kame sniffs. "Well if we ruin it," he says as he leans in to study the three steps of the recipe for the eighteenth time, "We'll have to find a copy in auction and then you can crease all of the pages to look exactly the same."

Jin makes a sound somewhere between annoyance and fear at that suggestion, but a more amiable one follows as they settle over Kame's back to reach around him for the mixing bowl. Kame hums, pleased, and wiggles back against Jin.

"Ok. I'm going to do the complicated part," Jin tells Kame, cheek smushed to cheekbone, "And you're going to be my assistant and minimal adult supervision."

Kame wonders which step of the large bright furigana instructions Jin considers _the complicated one_ , but he doesn't protest to being assistant. Not until Jin tells him that the assistant not only has to pour in the measured out ingredients but mix them by hand, too.

Kame doesn't _protest_ , because Kame isn't the type to back down from a challenge (which baking while wearing a fashionably dark and criminally expensive sweater is), and this is for Mariko, and he's not so inept at baking that he can't rub butter and flour together. They're due at Mariko's party in just under three hours, and he takes up what feels like two of them very carefully and precisely rolling up his sleeves. Jin chins at his shoulder; when Kame bats them away Jin sees the cloud of flour dust falling from their hair and can only assume where the majority of it has ended up.

"Did you just.." Jin cautiously pats at the side of their head. Their fingers come away specked with white; Kame's laugh is soft hidden behind his hand but bursts out as a shriek when Jin's arm hooks around his waist, holding him captive so he can't escape streaks of flour over his cheek. They're already dressed for going out, almost, with the exception of Jin adding some accessories for Mariko to borrow. Kame reminds Jin of this, and with a huff they stops trying to leave a matching mark on the other side.

"Ok. So," Kame checks that his rolled sleeves are secure. "You rub this together, then add the sugar, and—"

"Kazu, wait."

Kame pouts up at him. "Jin, I know how to do this, at least.."

Jin shakes their head. Runs fingers down Kame's arm, closes, brief and tight around his wrist, skims the back of his hand. "You'll never get it clean," they say, and Kame realises then that Jin's talking about his engagement ring. Jin eases it from his finger and holds it careful in their palm as they work off their own. "I have to take mine off at work every day, so I—" By their design the rings connect together, tiny silver runners that slot so the half crown on each becomes whole. Jin sweeps their hair back to unclasp their necklace, the one conjoined ring slipped below the knuckle of their thumb before being threaded safely onto the fine chain around their neck.

Kame has watched all of this, hands still poised above the mixing bowl, and he lets out a bashful laugh when Jin gently guides them down for him.

  
Once Kame's hands are messy it falls to Jin to separate and add the egg yolk, sugar and milk. For several minutes they work together in near silence, Jin taking the bowl to start combining everything with a spoon while Kame watches on, his hands drying in clumps of wet flour turned brittle.  
  
Now they've made a start things seem to be progressing pretty well, Kame thinks, until he turns back from the sink to find Jin midway to their mouth with a scoop of cookie batter on their fingertip.

"Jin!"

"I— Testing! Vanilla, proportions, and—" Jin sputters. They fix Kame with a fraught, somewhat offended look that doesn't waver as they pop their finger in their mouth, consider the taste, then swallow. "I'm a professional, it's just what you do. And you know how serious she was about this being perfect, we can't just leave that to chance."

Kame eyes them sceptically, but, well, when working with a professional it's best to follow their lead. "It's good!" he declares after tasting a scoop, nudging against Jin as he bounces on his toes.

Jin looks somewhat affronted that Kame sounds so surprised.

  
"I know it's stressful," Jin says consolingly as Kame's head drops to their shoulder, "But think how many bonus points we'll get for turning up with cookies still warm out the oven."

Kame makes a tired little sound, not dissimilar to when he's been in a meeting for three hours. "Do we need bonus points?"

"I prefer to have them. Your dad still scares me. And your brothers." Jin's history with family get-togethers isn't actually a bad one — Kame's family welcomed them in (his mother with open arms, his father with an approving sniff from behind his newspaper) without hesitation after seeing the change in Kame following his announcement of a new relationship. Jin doesn't really see much in themselves that other people see. That, and Kame's brothers haven't been subtle in letting them know they could dispose of Jin's body should Kame's heart ever be broken again. Not that Jin has any intention of doing anything of the sort, and not that Kame is ever anything but _glowing_ when he has the opportunity to be in a room bursting at the seams with love.

"Which pretty things are you going to wear?" Kame asks instead of reassuring Jin for the six hundredth time that his brothers aren't going to somehow know about their occasional disagreements and shed tears. He raises his head abruptly as a thought strikes him, then drops it back down with a thud and a whine. "I could have got you something specially for the occasion if I'd thought about it."

Jin smiles and drops a kiss to the top of Kame's head. "I have plenty of princess accessories already."

"You only ever let me spoil you if it's for an occasion, though," Kame pouts. "If I hadn't been working I would have thought in time."

Jin hums softly in sympathy and gives Kame a nudge. It starts them off swaying, and eventually Kame is pressing his mouth to Jin's shoulder to hide that he's not still drastically upset. He hadn't really planned on this, being 30 and baking cookies and swaying in the living room in the middle of the day. "Things are pretty nice, aren't they," he says, and Jin doesn't question that, just turns their head for a kiss.

Kame is a terrible one for letting small pecks escalate, and, well, the timer does still have seven minutes left.

The sound of little claws scrabbling across the floor registers with Jin first, Kame quickly after. Jin laughs, later, at the noise Kame makes at being interrupted, but in the moment chasing after Pancake and finding which side of the kitchen island she's approached from takes precedence.

"No no no—" Jin shoos her around from where she's intently focused on the counter edge and into Kame's waiting arms. Even with all the baseball he plays and gym visits between, Jin doesn't think Kame's exaggerating by grunting with effort as he lifts Pancake up to hold to his chest.

"Not for you," Kame tells her, lips pouting for a kiss, and she lolls her head back to lick at his chin. "Just wait until we get to the party, then there'll plenty more to eat than licking cookie batter off the counter.

Everyone's going to want to feed her everything," he says to Jin, giving Pancake a gentle squeeze that has her wriggling in his arms, "And she's going to love it."

Jin gives her a scritch behind the ear before Kame steps away to deposit her at a safe distance from where they're about to set the cookies out to cool. "Maybe she was worried we'd forget her and she'd miss out on her first birthday party. She's kind of the guest of honour." Jin has no doubt that Kame's father is going to be far more eager to see Pancake than her parents. He softens in a way Jin finds quite unnerving when he has a sleeping corgi in his lap.

 

Jin finishes off the cookies themself while Kame elects for making sure Pancake is thoroughly groomed, perky eared and wearing her best collar. The cookies are domed, cracked and topped with sugar granules, so (thankfully) don't call for decorating. Jin is both a baker and a doodler, but their hands aren't the steadiest and time is starting to catch up with their plans.

Instead the cookies go into a plain old box to be transferred to something fancier at the party. Jin, on the other hand, is very well decorated before it's time to leave. Kame assists, securing clasps and stealing kisses as they sort through which of Jin's jewellery collection Mariko will most want to borrow for the evening. Kame is reunited with his engagement ring, admiring it as he did the day they got them.

"We're ready early," Jin says, surprised, as they raise their phone to swipe up for the camera. "And no that doesn't mean we have time to get all dishevelled.."

Kame is pouting severely in the first selfie Jin takes of them pressed cheek to cheek. He smiles in the second, crescent eyes, and kisses Jin's cheek in the third. Jin attempts to return the gesture, but Kame remembers their lip gloss in enough time to shriek and duck away. 

 

"Ok. Presents. —and Mariko's magazine."

Kame lifts the bag in his left hand, peering inside just to make sure before nodding. "Check."

"Cookies," Jin lists, because it was second on their mental list, and hikes up the container under their arm. "Check. Pancake and Kazu."

"Check." Kame holds up Pancake's leash, but the jingling of her collar and how loud her panting is getting in anticipation of going out were enough. He steps closer to Jin and leans up into a kiss, catching Jin a little off guard where they were lost in concentration. "And me, too."

"Yeah. You're," Jin hikes up the container again and suddenly feels the urge to adjust all of their jewellery. "You're definitely here."

 

"Kazu," Jin tugs at his arm gently after they've locked up the apartment and are heading down the stairs. "Please don't kiss me in front of your parents. Not— a kiss is ok, but not a _kiss_ kiss."

Pancake takes stairs pretty fast when she gets into a rhythm, and Kame can't really stop to look back up at Jin for as long as he'd like. "I don't know if I can make any promises.."

" _Kazu_ ," Jin whines, but trying to sound firm while clutching a container of cookies and chasing an excited corgi down the stairs is a bit beyond Jin. Their hair looks wild again already.

"No, you're right," Kame says seriously, "That's no way to treat a lady at a party."

Jin's cheeks heat, less flustered and more pleased.

"I'll just have to catch you when no one is looking." 

Jin's whine travels right up through the stairwell, but Kame's laughter echoes louder.


End file.
